Art around the home  

heavymetalsclupture
I do love the big abstraction (on the right) in your room shot.
Cant say I enjoy the purple "Josef Albers" (on the left) though. Not because it doesnt have a nice presence, or isnt well done. It is fine on that level.
But when I look at a painting that is obviously derivative of a great series (Joseph Albers "Homage to the Square"), all I can think about is HIS work, not the one I am looking at.
I could see it if it was done by a student as an honest exploration, and as an attempt to learn something about relative color, through the context of a great color field painter.
Thats one of the horrible things about "ART". The pretense.
The pretense is "assumed", and everybody (including me) tends to get mad at art for being all full of itself -- even if it is not.
Mabye that is what I like about Woody's collection so much. They all have a fuck up, but they lack pretense, and it provides me with a way to enjoy looking without getting ticked off.

Of course I could be wrong, but
when I look at the detail shots, I see obvious hand-drawn highlights and shadows to sharpen the detail and provide better contrast. Overall, though, it comes across as enlarged either from a thin negative or overexposed intentionally. To me, the eyes are the giveaway. I can't be certain by looking at photos on a screen, but I'd almost bet on it.
There's a mostly silver-gray, unframed piece in your slide show that appears to be metal with exposed tack heads and a vague outline of a portrait drawing on it. That's what I (and, I think, EH) was referring to.

Not around the home..
but I enjoyed James Turrell's exibit at the Guggenheim recently....with a morning buzz. I wore black.
Link below,
Aunt Mark
http://p.nytimes.com/email/re?location=InCMR7g4BCKC2wiZPkcVUm7bDSGri5IK&...

this thread
has made me realize just how much art we have around the house. And how much much of it means to me...
1. A picture I picked up from the Oregon St. Salvage sale. By a professor emeritus from OSU Alan A. Munro.
2. A weird but somehow just right picture of a logging mill. Very Oregon subject.
3. Yes, the Beatles, done by Sherry Vilas who was the sister of my brother's best buddy as a kid. My wise mother bought it for me when I was a kid as I loved the beatles and adored the painting. I also have one by her of Illya Kiryakin from the Man from Uncle. She was well regarded back in the 60's (shows, collections) but I think passed at a young age.

I find this thread really...
I find this thread really interesting because it often seems to come back to an artwork having some evidence of its maker or mode of production. The presence of the artist in the form of mark-making is an antidote to the culture of commercialisation and mass reproduction of art. I only buy original works and don't have prints because I like to know that what I gaze at and enjoy has a direct link to the person who made it.
Buying original works by emerging artists is an inexpensive way to support artists in their early careers. It's really nice to find an artist whose work resonates with you and watch their work develop over the years. The different influences and creative directions are part of an exciting story which unfolds in the artist's work. I get great joy from paintings and drawings and they always connect me to that creative need to leave a mark, to communicate what it is to be a sentient being.

EamesHead
The Albers (actually blue) is a screen print made by the Tom Tru Corporation. I think it's corporate art. The painting on the right is by Girts Purins, a Latvian artist, and painted in 1962. It is titled "Homage to an Archeologist". So I have two homages on the wall 🙂

Ah, okay
Now I get it! This is actually the back side of the portrait of a boy / young man. As you can see, it is metal, and it has an outline that matches the portrait on the front (looks like pencil or a light etching). For these additional reasons, I don't see how this could be a colored photograph.

Tick,
"Buying original works by emerging artists is an inexpensive way to support artists in their early careers"...reminded me of a great documentary :"Meet the Vogels." Herb and Dorothy Vogel, a New York couple of very modest means, who devoted their lives (and meager salaries) to buying art from up and coming artists, and amassed an important and staggering collection in their tiny N.Y apartment..well worth a watch (if you haven't already)
Woody, can it not be a tintype photograph?

Solange
I don't know much about tin-type, but the metal seems to be too thick? I can take a photo if it would help.
I have seen that documentary -- quite fascinating. I believe the proper title is "Herb & Dorothy"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vma2T5luy08

.
Exactly Woodywood, thank you."Herb and Dorothy"...I was conjuring the title from memory...
Tintype is not my strong suit...but your picture is such a lovely and mysterious thing!

pfffftttt haha woody and tktoo
hmmm.... so much for my rant on "erased" portraits. Well it does lack pretense, that is for sure now, since it was not even an attempt at a painting in the first place. And Woody I was also giving you credit for actually choosing to own the "crater-headed ghost". But no. The photograph works in mysterious ways sometimes. You have to admit that it IS a quite interesting image though. All the scratches and the character and stuff... I still love it.
tktoo: For me, it is the warmer coloring in the grey of the head that makes me stop short of saying I am sure I know what it is. You could be right. It may be a mystery forever.
Moving on....
Mark: I am totally envious that you got to go see a James Turrell piece. One of my favorite artists from way back. And buzzed no less. Damn. Great photo of the marathon too.
Heavymetalsculpture: Good to know that I picked the actual painting of the two on your wall! whew....... And I wonder if that fake blue Albers was knocked out in China by those guys on woody's video! For some reason, that would be hilarious. The thought of those guys carefully doing a copy of a minimalist painting. (interesting to think about why that idea is so totally absurd though.)
Tick: Yes, I agree that "singularity" is one of the best things about original art. In 1000 years, somebody can still "feel" how some paintings or drawings were made, touched--just as directly as when they were made. Its like the presence of the artist is still there in the most direct way. A drawing is not only an image or illusion or whatever, but is also a residue of an experience that took place, or a "performance" that happened right on the surface of the piece-- and it cuts right through time to the current viewer. Not the same with art that is behind a glass screen, like a video. And not the same with reproductions. Great article.
waffle: I love your mill painting the best. The Beatles painting is also quite inventive with pattern and color (but Jesus I KNOW those album covers!) I think they are permanently SEARED into my nervous system from childhood. She was looking at some Warhol in those early years too I bet!

This is a cool thread. I...
This is a cool thread. I enjoy seeing other people's art collections.
I like living in a smaller space but one thing I don't like is not having much wall space for art. I only have a few pieces. The main one is a gouache by the French modernist Jean Lurcat, from 1959:

more of my stuff
I found some photos on my computer that I forgot were there.
These are all just things I got at estate auctions except for the weimaraner, which is a water color print by some guy who used to sell on Ebay and maybe still does. He does a lot of animals and I thought most were a little bit off but I loved this one. I'm not even a dog person, either.
Next, an old old ink and watercolor of a monkey next to a photo of my 2nd child at age 2-3, in kind of the same mood as the monkey.
Last, this one is only about 7" square framed. I loved it and had to have it and got it for under ten bucks. Yay!

one more
sketch by a friend

one that I enjoy...
This is a painting that a friend of mine painted as a wedding gift for my wife and I. The image doesn't show scale but the painting is 4'x3'. He put a lot of thought into it to represent us both.